


Loophole

by KiwiMeringue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Content warnings!! Like all the content warnings!!, Drug Use, FrostMaster and Thor is there, GUYS IT'S DARK AND I'M SCARED, Grandthorki, Grandthorki Day 2019, M/M, Public Groping, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Slavery, Sibling Incest, THE IMMINENT THREAT OF GRANDTHORKI, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, irl friends have fun looking me in the eyes now, tagging just to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-12-28 00:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21127613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiwiMeringue/pseuds/KiwiMeringue
Summary: The rebellion fizzles out, the escape fails. Thor and Loki are recaptured by the Grandmaster, who torments and humiliates them for his entertainment. As usual, Loki seems to know more than he's saying, and he's down to the last trick up his sleeve. (For Grandthorki Day 2019)





	1. Blue is Your Colour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loxxlay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loxxlay/gifts).

> Tagged just to be safe, but please sit this one out if any of the tagged triggers are going to cause you undue stress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really, really nervous about this one. I was originally going to submit it anonymously, but oh god, here goes. This one is going to be relatively tame as far as Grandthorki (a definition of which can be found here) /Frostmaster/ Sakaar hellplanet content goes, but that's still way outside of what I normally write. This is way, way outside of my comfort zone, if you're following me for my usual happy fun content, you might want to skip this.
> 
> A few notes on general fandom stuff. Thorki isn't really my thing. As a general rule if I like an author I'll read just about anything by them, though, so while I don't go looking for it I've definitely read some really well written work and have no problem with people who do. I say this to clarify that unless explicitly stated, you don't have to be looking out for Thorki subtext in anything else I write (and if you see things that way it wasn't how I intended it). Lox's definiton of Grandthorki precludes like "they've secretly had feelings for eachother etc etc" anyway, so this is a little different. Grandthorki isn't so much a pairing as a hostage situation.
> 
> This is also necessitates being more in line with the much much darker fandom interpretation and extrapolation of the implications of Sakaar and of the Grandmaster (and there are tons of authors who do this so well, I am just a little goldfish in this dark cathartic pond) than like, Disney Grandmaster that you actually see in Ragnarok. UF and TIHSTI are both like, very much in the "disney" more along the lines of Glumshoe's Space Emeror, capricious nutcase that occasionally melts people ("A lunatic, but he can be amenable"). Again, like, just to clarify that there's nothing darker lurking in my other stuff xD; I have a post on GeminiJackdaw in the works on like my feelings on Disney Sakaar.
> 
> Anyway! If you're still with me, I'm worried about how unpolished this is, because I only got the idea for it veeery late in the month, and may come back and fix it up but I really did want to have something submitted by the deadline. Part 2 will probably be up some time tomorrow. I'm really really nervous about this one, even though I'm a total weenie so everything's mostly off screen and implied, but Lox is wonderful and I really wanted to contribute to her event. Ok I'm... going to post this and run like hell now xD

Each of the Grandmaster’s parties seems to wear at him more quickly than the last. He’d been given the command to ‘mingle,’ and as Thor shoulders his way through the crowd of writhing bodies, that seems to mean look docile, say nothing, and allow himself to be handled however the guests might like. 

Someone gives his backside a firm swat in passing, and Thor grits his teeth, clenches his jaw, and keeps still. He’d lashed out at first, weeks ago, a thousand years of warrior’s training kicking into instinctual gear, but the gentle reminder of the obedience disk in his neck-- sending him crashing, convulsing, to the floor-- had soon overpowered that reflex. He breathes deep as more hands trail across the muscles of his back, dip below the scant, flimsy fabric of his so-called garments, and remembers his brother imploring him to endure. _ We can’t escape if we’re dead, _ the memory of Loki’s warnings ring clear in his mind, _ and we’re dead if the Grandmaster is displeased. _

He’s done his best to cooperate, to rein in his temper and his pride, because the Grandmaster keeps separating his brother from him, and not so subtly implying that Thor’s behaviour was directly related to the state in which Loki would be returned. 

So Thor, Son of Odin, First Prince of Asgard, does as he’s told. He’s groveled for food and water when it pleased, tried to mask his disgust as he heaped gratitude for the privilege of being allowed out of their quarters for the purposes of these debauched soirees, and though it sets his heart to sink like a stone in his chest, he allows Loki to be led away when the Grandmaster so desires-- and he desires often. 

There’s an air of plausible deniability when Loki finally reappears and they’re allowed to return to their rooms. He can’t know for sure what happens, then, though he suspects. A nagging certainty that the indignities to which his brother submits himself are of an entirely different nature, one that makes him want to scream if he thinks on it. Loki won’t say, and Thor doesn’t push, because if Loki tells jhim, if Thor ** _knows_ **, he fears he’ll lack the strength to contain his rage, and knows he lacks enough to bear its consequences, and where they would likely land. 

So he waits, waits to return to the quiet privacy of their shared rooms where he can at least dream of escape and revenge and releasing the tempest inside of him without fear of what might show in his eyes. _ The Valkyrie got away. She’ll come back for us, _he reminds himself as he decides to risk a drink, weighing the potential help in surviving the evening against the potential for slip ups, or slip-ins. He snags a glass from a passing server, but waits and watches as others drink from the same tray. When no one collapses, he knocks it back. 

It’s as he’s searching for a place to set the empty glass, dutiful willing servant that he is, that he catches a rare glimpse of their host through the crowd. The Grandmaster is smiling languidly, sprawled back against the plush cushions of a sofa, and there, draped across his lap, hair mussed and robe nudged loose, a smudge of blue paint on his lips, is Loki. 

He knows his brother’s smile-- the ** _real _ **one, clever and irreverent, that crinkles his nose and accompanies that familiar laughter-- and the one he wears now is not it. This is the carefully constructed facade reserved for charm, and flattery. 

The Grandmaster catches sight of him between the passing guests, and his grin stretches wider. He leans in to Loki’s neck, fingers tracing the disk embedded there, and whispers something. Thor can’t catch the words over the din of guests and glasses and music, but the smile fades from his brother’s face as he turns to face him. Loki does not react to whatever is being said. He stills, his expression revealing nothing, and Thor knows him well enough to recognize this as a reaction in and of itself-- and never a good sign. The Grandmaster shifts Loki to topple back against the couch, and stands, fingers steepled as he makes his way towards Thor, and Loki scrambles to his feet. From behind the Grandmaster’s back he gestures sharply for Thor to stay away as he comes alongside him. His posture is demure, appeasing, and he’s speaking, an attempt to persuade, the reply just barely audible as they approach. 

“I think Sparkles must be feeling a little neglected, huh? Why don’t we invite him over here--” 

“Because--” Loki plants himself but the Grandmaster doesn’t stop, just continues through the guests that part for him, “Because I’ve been thinking about something you said!” he blurts out after a moment of frantic thought, and that does make the Grandmaster hesitate. His brother swallows thickly, the smile that flits across his face strained. “A few weeks ago, over drinks, about… about how I needed to--”

“Oh,” the Grandmaster hums thoughtfully, and his brother somehow looks both relieved and more nervous at once when he turns his full attention back towards him. “Back when you were a party guest, and not a uh…” he prods at his bare chest, “not a party favour?” He lets out a chuckle, pleased with himself, and Loki follows along. 

“Yes,” he says, his tone is still rapt, but his chest is heaving, his hands twitch at his sides, desperate to fidget. “I’ve been thinking on it often, recently. I beg your forgiveness that I wasn’t open to it at the time, I would be...” his tongue darts out to wet his lips, his mouth gone dry, catching that dot of blue pigment,“truly grateful if you would indulge me.” His eyes keep flitting to Thor’s for an instant at a time, imploring _ leave, _ but something keeps him rooted to the spot. Whatever he’s offering, Loki is terrified; he can’t abandon him, has to help him--

The Grandmaster’s eyebrows arch as he looks him up and down. “Well you know me, Kitten. I’m all about indulging...” 

Loki sighs in feigned relief and folds into a deep, sweeping bow. “Thank you,” he breathes, and Thor can still hear the effort it takes to keep steady, “thank you. This is… still quite a hurdle for me. I humbly request that Thor be removed. I believe it would be easier to achieve if… _ he _ weren’t here.” 

“_Loki? _” Thor calls, anxious and bewildered, the sudden note of disdain in his brother’s voice cutting, but Loki doesn’t acknowledge him, and follows obediently along as the Grandmaster lays a hand on his shoulder and steers him towards a side room. The crowd is far less accommodating for Thor as he tries to push his way through in pursuit, craning his neck to see over guests' heads and keep sight of them. 

He finally breaks through the throng of warm bodies, stumbling into a quieter side room, and finds the Grandmaster waiting just inside the doorway, leering at him, the remote in hand, and he brandishes it with a twiddle of his fingers. Thor’s body tenses at the mere sight of it, but the blinding pain comes just the same, and in an instant he’s dropped to the floor. His head hits the tile floor, the room swims above him, and then there’s nothing. 

When Thor returns to hazy consciousness and blinks his eyes open he’s staring at the same ceiling, feeling the same thudding music reverberate through the same floor, a persistent, full-body ache left over from the obedience disk’s sting. As his vision comes back into focus he slowly props himself up on his elbows and a groan slips free as he pushes himself back up to sitting-- 

The Grandmaster is reclined back in in a wide, curving armchair, the sound he’d made startling the figure straddling his lap-- robed pooled around the waist, the Grandmaster’s hands trailing along the markings sweeping the blue skin, but it’s the eyes that demand Thor’s attention as he twists back towards him-- Loki’s eyes, wide with panic, and red from the pupils out. 

He pales, horror-stricken for the instant their gazes meet, but then the Grandmaster reaches up to twist a fistful of his hair and drag him back down to hold him in place by the crook of his neck, where his brother obediently begins to lavish attention, cold breath crystallizing against the heat of the other man's skin. “Ah! That uh, wow, that is _ bracing _,” the Grandmaster exclaims, before he turns his languid smile to Thor, and gropes in the cushions with his free hand. Thor charges. “Night night, sparkles.”

He makes it halfway to his feet before the Obedience disk hits and the world dissolves into pain and bright light and the echo of his own pained howling. 

He drifts in and out of consciousness, dimly aware of being dragged back to the apartment. 

From the darkness outside, he wakes fully a few hours later, and it's a few hours more, spent pacing the length of their flat like a caged animal, until one of the Grandmaster’s guards shoves Loki through the doorway, just as light begins creeping up from between the peaks of Sakaar’s jagged skyline. 

He staggers into the room, himself again, as Thor knows him, and exceptionally drunk. His clothes are disheveled, countless dark rings of love-bite bruises littering his exposed flesh. Loki braces himself against the nearest wall, runs a hand back through his mussed hair in a futile attempt to straighten it, tries to make some progress with the tattered scraps of his clothing, and tenses when Thor approaches him. 

“Loki--”

Loki raises a finger, a clumsy, abrupt gesture to silence him. “Don’t.” 

Thor lets out a slow breath, hands clenched into fists at his sides. His anger can wait; he needs to focus on Loki. “Are you alright--?” 

“Stop looking at me like that,” he slurs. “Stop looking at me at all.” Loki glowers at him, his face flushed from drink and shame. “I’m fine,” he adds, voice clipped, and then his gaze drops, unable to meet Thor’s eyes, and slumps back against the wall. “Just forget you saw anything, I’m begging you. Please, just let me pretend you didn’t see.” 

Thor’s eyebrows knit, his expression firm. He takes another steadying breath through his nose. “Loki you’ve nothing to be ashamed for-” 

An unsteady bark of derisive laughter cuts him off. “Are you going to try to convince me that I’m not a monster, Thor? Or not a whore? Save your breath either way.” 

“You had no choice,” His voice comes out thick, choked with emotion, a tightness in his throat that he would normally dislodge by screaming. 

There’s a little ripple of a shudder through his form as his brother laughs again. “It’s how I was getting along before. Where things were headed, anyway, but then I had… how did Banner put it? Ah, yes. _ A hand on the wheel _.” His hand drifts up towards his neck, and grips the disk embedded there. He spasms at the jolt it gives him when he tries, as they’ve tried hundreds of times before, to rip it free, and he slams a clumsy fist against the wall in frustration. 

He doesn’t ask how the Grandmaster had even known about Loki’s heritage. It’s becoming clearer the longer they stay on Sakaar, how deep his power runs, how hopelessly outmatched they are. First Hela, now this. Thor just feels smaller, and smaller, and he’s never felt as helpless as he does now. 

He looks up at Thor, frozen in place by the warring desires to help and to not hurt, to pull his little brother into his arms and to give him space to breathe. He doesn’t know how to make this better. “Loki,” he begins, stepping forward, and that hot stab of rage and cold chill of guilt pool together in his gut when he flinches away. 

“I’m fine.” He insists. “I’m fine, but today was… You were never supposed to see me like that,” he says, his eyes, the whites white and the irises their familiar green, red-rimmed and brimming with unshed tears. The facade is gone, the careful control he exerts over himself at every moment stripped away by alcohol and, Thor is beginning to suspect, perhaps something stronger. “Never.” 

“I was wrong, all those years,” is all Thor can think to say. Something he should have said long before. “We all were, all of Asgard was. I wish they had told me. Told both of us right from the beginning.” 

Loki groans and shakes his head. “Thor, leave it, please.” 

“No,” he shakes his head and takes a tentative step closer. “Loki, listen to me. I think of you no differently, you must know that. It only makes me regret ever thinking poorly of Jotnar at all.”

He shakes his head again, uncoordinated, mumbles something like “No.”

“Loki you are no less the brother I grew up with and loved with all my heart--”

“Just_ stop _.”

“That I trusted with my life on countless adventures? That mother would sing to sleep-”

“Don’t you** _ dare!” _ **Loki rounds on him so suddenly that Thor nearly stumbles back. The fire dies out as quickly as it had flared, but at least Loki is looking at him now. “Don’t you dare make me think of her. Not here.”

“You’re my brother, and I love you.” 

“Stop ** _saying that!_ **”

Thor is trying-- trying to reassure him, trying to say the right thing-- but he’s only making things worse. He hasn’t his brother’s gifts with words. Each reassurance, each reaffirmation of his love and esteem only seem to wind him tighter, drive him further and further into a panic. 

“This is all your fault,” he says suddenly. “You and your stupid uprising. If you had just left well enough alone--” 

They’ve had this argument before, whose fault this is: Loki’s for his last-minute betrayal, Thor’s for the entire harebrained endeavor, Loki’s for calling down the bifrost, Thor’s for dragging him to midgard. In lighter moments, before the reality of their situation had really set in, they’d bickered back and back and back,to Heimdall for letting them through to Jotunheim, to Buri’s for having the nerve to beget Bor. 

Loki is trying to steer the conversation into familiar territory, safer territory.

“You’re changing the subject.” 

Thor doesn’t take the bait and his expression crumples when he sees that. Loki sucks in a breath through his teeth and it sounds alarmingly like a sob. “You don’t _ understand _\--!” 

“Then help me understand,” he implores, finally closing some of the distance between them, stopping just short of laying a hand on his shoulder as is his habit. His brother’s resolve shatters with another shuddering breath. 

“He had champions before Banner,” he begins, distracted, frantic. “He had other favourites before me. Do you know where they are now? Because I don’t. When the Grandmaster grows bored, he asks for more. Always more, and** _ more_ ** , and that was ** _it_ ** ,” he says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, with a bubble of nervous, drunken laughter. “All I had _ left _. The last shiny thing I had to dangle before him to keep his attention from… from--” his voice fails him and he looks up at Thor, absolute terror in his eyes. 

“Me,” Thor says numbly as the realization sinks in. “You’re trying to divert his attention from me.” Loki says nothing, but his eyes are pained. 

He wonders, if he really let go, if there would be lightning inside of him enough to fry the stupid disk right from his neck. He’s tried before, but the rage, and disgust and loathing flooding his veins now might be enough. He wants to scream, to break something, to break down their door and tear the Grandmaster apart with his bare hands, to die in the attempt. 

Loki is looking at him, afraid and humiliated and alone to face the retribution, if Thor destroys himself. A smile that’s more like a grimace pulls at his mouth, his voice trembles. “You’re my little brother. I’m meant to be protecting _ you_.” 

“Not here,” Loki replies. He sounds tired, defeated, his voice low and hoarse. “This is my arena, but I’m out of ideas. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll think of something.” 

“You don’t have to protect me. What if I…” Thor shifts uncomfortably, the knot in his gut pulling tighter. “Would it help? Would it take the pressure off of you if I shouldered some of that?” 

His brother starts laughing again, a broken, desperate, wracking cackle that seems to sap the last of his strength. “Thor, you were willing to fight all of Jotunheim because one called you _ Princess _ . You can’t. But that's me, isn't it? Whatever I have to be, whatever is convenient. I know all about surviving on my knees,” he wraps his arms around himself, and with another humourless little chuckle, says something under his breath. _ Is this not easier? _

His brother moves gingerly, stiffly. He’s in pain.

“I’ve changed. I can swallow my pride, I swear it. I have been,” he’s struggled, but he’s managed so far. He’s certain now. “If it were to protect you, I could do anything.” 

“Anything,” he echoes softly. “ You don’t understand how bad ‘anything’ can be. How much more there is before the ** _more_ ** runs out.” A long moment passes in pained, vulnerable silence before Loki sighs, and scrubs a hand across his face. “Thor,” he says, sighing again when his brother jumps to respond with attentive worry, “You’re between me and the shower. Move.”

Thor waits, and waits as his brother barricades himself in the bathroom, and from the heat and intensity of the steam curling beneath the doorframe, he must have it turned up to boiling. 

His skin is scalded and scrubbed raw when he finally emerges, flushed, and hot and Aesir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 is short and should be up by tomorrow. I'm worried that this exists in this nebulous space that's like too dark for what I normally write, but not nearly enough for the people who are into darkfic OTL


	2. Thicker than Water

There’s a chill in the air when Thor awakes, and he rolls over in the bed they share, both to better nestle under the thin sheet that usually feels excessive in Sakaar’s sticky heat, and to turn his face from the sliver of hazy afternoon light cast across the room and directly into his eyes through the curtains. 

He groans, and settles back down against his pillow, eyes fluttering shut, before he’s jolted awake by the realization that he is alone. Thor bolts upright, blinking the sleep from his eyes and staring at the empty side of the bed, and the other blanket left abandoned, draped over the edge. 

The lamps are unlit, and the shades are all drawn, apartment lit by the grey glow that diffuses through and peeks around the edges. Thor calls out. There’s no answer but he does hear movement from the darkened bathroom, the air growing colder as he approaches. 

He finds his brother there— his brother who was never comfortable with less than two outfits worth of clothing on his back— stripped bare to the waist, and staring at his own reflection with a look of such single-minded loathing that Thor is nearly staggered by it, the breath he lets out crystallizing in the glacial air. Tendrils of frost have curled up his arms like ivy, up the mirror, and his brother grips the sink so tightly that the thick, sharpened black nails that Thor refuses to think of as claws have carved deep slashes into the porcelain. An ice crystal clings to the back of his neck, and it takes Thor a moment to realize what it is— his body has reacted to an intrusion, enveloped the disk in ice like a scab over a wound. 

It’s hard to tell beneath the unfamiliar complexion, but he looks drawn, red eyes shadowed. He’d been in desperate need of rest, and Thor can’t be sure how long he’s been here. 

Loki’s eyes flicker from his own as he catches Thor’s reflection over his shoulder, and that fury softens. “I thought of something,” he rasps, a weak smile pulling at the blue lips before he returns his attention to his reflection. “I look like him, don't I?” he muses, swallowing hard. “My father.” 

  
“He’s wasn’t,” Thor says softly.

A miserable sound pretending to be a laugh slips from his throat. “Thor ** _look_ ** at me.”

Thor _ is _looking at him, unwavering. “Not in any way that mattered.” he insists, risking a step closer. “He may have brought you into the world, but that doesn’t make you his son.” 

“Oh, but I ** _am_ **,” his smile reveals sharpened teeth. “The one he deserved. I am Loki of Jotunheim, son of Laufey. He left me for dead, and I murdered him right back,” he laughs to himself, a distracted, unsteady sound. “Monsters devouring each other.” 

“Loki, you are ** _no monster_ **\--” but he ducks away from the hand Thor tries to lay upon his shoulder, and spins to face him. Thor blinks at the tiny flicker upwards it takes to meet his eyes, in this form. Loki notices it too, and leans in to tower over him. 

“Aren’t I?” he begins, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “I who usurped your throne?” 

  
“Loki--”  


“Who would have ** _leveled _ ** your precious Midgard to take it for myself? Who would have torn your new friends limb from ** _limb_ ** ** _—_ **”

Thor holds his ground against the encroachment, keeps his voice level. This is starting to look very familiar, and he isn’t going to fail this time. “Loki, I know what the Mind Stone is; I’ve seen it in my dreams. What it can do to someone. I know—” 

“And what of before?” he spits, as the momentum carries him on, tumbling farther, and farther into fury and desperation.“What I would have done to Sif, your Warriors three, your beloved mortal.” There are tears gathering in Loki’s crimson eyes as he grows more frantic. “**_I killed you!_ **” The scream tears painfully from his throat. 

Thor can see him still, so clearly, lost and raging and cast in the cold light of the bifrost as it built to ruin. 

_ Fight me! _

No. Not this time. 

He reaches out again, slowly, carefully, but Loki backs away, colliding with the sink behind him as he recoils. “Brother—”

“**_No,_**” His voice is still ragged, weighed down by exhaustion and emotion. “You never had a brother. Only this. I killed you. You got back up again, but I ** _killed you_ **. Our mother would never have seen you again-” He catches his mistake the same moment Thor does, but it’s too late to take it back. 

“Our mother.” Loki slaps his hand away, and it stings like cold metal. “Brother—”

“—I’m ** _not._ **” 

“Why are you doing this?” He hates himself for not asking this question sooner. Much sooner. .

Loki swallows thickly, his shoulders heaving as he pants, breath strained. It doesn’t cloud like Thor’s does in the cold. “You need to know,” he says, his tone close to begging. “No matter what form he makes me take, this is what I really am, underneath. This is the truth. ** _This._ ** The story that frightens children back to their parents at dusk. The Aesir’s natural enemy. ** **_Laufeyson,_” he says under his breath, screwing his eyes shut tight, mumbling it to himself like a mantra. When they flutter open again, he looks down at Thor, and gives him a weak, pleading smile. 

“I can’t save us,” he says, the tears gathering spill over and freeze on his cheek like crystal beads. “This is all I can do. Don’t you see? How much easier it will be, this way? To leave me behind if you get the chance? To watch me suffer?” His hand closes around Thor’s still-outstretched wrist, and he reaches for the other. Thor allows it until he realizes what his brother is doing— bringing Thor’s hands to clasp his neck. The feel of him is unfamiliar, the skin thicker and cold, but he feels his brother’s pulse pounding beneath his hands, the nervous bob of his throat as he swallows. “To hurt me yourself, if you have to?” 

“Loki,** _ stop_ **,” Thor tries to wrench his hands away but Loki has them gripped right, and squeezes harder around his own throat. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head, his voice constricted by the pressure. “No. It’s alright. You may even enjoy it, in this form. Try to remember how you hated them. How ** _good_ ** it felt, the way they shattered like _ glass _—”

With another sharp tug, Thor jerks himself backwards and manages to wrench his hands free of his brother’s stranglehold on himself. His hands leave his throat, and he holds one to his forearm, fingers flexed. “I don’t care, like this,” Loki assures him, with a wobbly peal of laughter. “I_ want _ to destroy this body. Look,” he sinks his nails into his forearm, strong and sharp and made for tearing. They slip through his skin easily, dark blood welling up around them, and he _ drags _ ** _, _ **a row of fresh gouges that bisect the markings running down his arm. The black blood oozes, and thickens, and freezes. The (many) lines of ice up his arms are wounds. 

Thor feels bile rising at the back of his throat. 

Loki almost looks relieved when he lunges forward, hoping he’s finally provoked him, but instead Thor wrenches his hand away from himself, and his brother roars in protest, flails to try and shake himself free. Thor grits his teeth, plants his feet, and does what he should have done on the Rainbow Bridge, at the top of what was then still Stark Tower. 

He wraps his arms around his struggling little brother, and he doesn’t let go. Loki howls and thrashes in his grasp. Thor feels the ripple of his brother’s magic as the exposed skin of his arms, and chest, and cheek begin to burn with frostbite, but he holds on. 

“I’m hurting you, you idiot! Let me** _ go_ **!” he snarls, but Thor holds fast. 

“Not if you’re going to hurt yourself,” he manages through his clenched teeth. He asks again. “Why are you doing this?” 

Loki slackens in his grasp. He’s still cool to the touch, but no longer painfully. “I need to hear you say it,” he chokes, and Thor feels a frozen tear thaw against his cheekbone. “You’re not my brother. You don’t love me. Please,” he sobs. “_ Please. _” 

Thor draws back enough to meet Loki’s pleading gaze. “Loki,” he begins slowly, his brows dipping as the unease that lives into the pit of his stomach deepens into horror, “what is it you fear that he ** _wants?_ **” 

Loki doesn’t answer. His eyes fall, the first hints of a reply forming and dying on his tongue, and he shudders. “I need to hear it,” he repeats instead, and that horror becomes a certainty.

His head spins, and his knees threaten to buckle as he contemplates the depth of the worst, beyond anything he’d dared imagine. Loki had warned him, and he understands. How deep _ more _ could go, how far _ anything _ might entail. Why not being family, why not being _ loved _might be easier to bear. 

He draws in a slow breath, meeting his brother’s eyes. The colour is unfamiliar, but the shape is still him, as is the shape of his face, the graceful sweep of his cheekbones, of his nose. All of it his brother, his Loki. 

“You are not my brother,” he says, making sounds with his mouth that mean nothing. “I do not love you.” 

Loki shatters. With a shiver he collapses, throwing his arms around Thor’s neck, wracked by sobs that become watery, tearful laughter. “Thor,” he says, defeated, miserable, smiling, “for fuck’s sake, learn to _ lie. _ ”

Thor pulls him in tighter. “That’s the best I’ve got.” 

“It’s pathetic; I don’t believe you for a second.” 

“You shouldn’t; it was total horseshit.” His vision swims with his own tears as he manages a weary smile of his own. 

His little brother, who he swears is a little bit taller every time he thinks about it, clings to him, stooped to bury his face in his shoulder as they laugh and cry at once. Doomed, but together.

He reaches up to run a hand down his little brother's hair, down his neck, comforting, grounding. “Believe this, no matter what happens next,” there’s a weight to these words that the lies could never carry, and Loki feels it. Thor knows what he’s promising. “You are my brother. I will always love you. And I am leaving with you, or not at all.” 

He feels Loki nod against the frostbitten skin of his shoulder, and he shrinks within Thor’s grasp, growing warmer, the bones sliding and rearranging themselves beneath his skin as he slips back into his favoured form. 

He runs a hand through his hair to straighten it, letting the blunt nails rake against his scalp, and he winces as he takes in the grey patches of skin along Thor’s arms and chest. Thor shrugs and nods his head to indicate the scratches running up Loki’s arms. “We’ll get ourselves patched up. I’ll find the kit.” 

Loki stretches, rubbing at the bones and muscles that had been longer a moment before. He rolls his shoulder, tilts his neck, and a jumps when something stops him. With a roll of his eyes, he reaches up to brush away the ice crystal clinging to the back of his neck. 

“Thor…” 

He looks up from the drawer he’s searching to find his brother, wide eyed, standing motionless in the center of their bathroom. A stunned smile stretches across his face as he holds out his hand to show Thor what he’s holding: a chunk of ice, and the sparking, fizzling obedience disk still frozen inside. 

Thor blinks at it, baffled, as a grin pulls at his mouth and long-forgotten feeling dawns in his heart: hope.

"What was that about not being able to save us?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then they escape! And Val and Bruce were just about to bust back in to save them, it's been like ten minutes for them. Or not! Maybe they get recaptured, whichever works for you. 
> 
> Recently I've realized the extent to which I thing for Jotun Loki holy shit xD; If I'm writing it, ya boi is turning blue. 
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me! And Lox I hope you've liked it <3


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